Tornado pummels Silver Lakes, Big Oak areas

Friday

“You know how they say it sounds like a freight train?,” Glencoe resident Joshua Chandler asked while standing in his kitchen, just feet away from a busted window.

“You know how they say it sounds like a freight train?,” Glencoe resident Joshua Chandler asked while standing in his kitchen, just feet away from a busted window.“It doesn’t sound like a freight train,” Chandler recalled. “It sounds like bombs dropping over there: Boom, boom, boom.”Chandler said he was standing on his front porch Wednesday night when he saw the tornado. It was across the highway from his home and headed his way.“I had time to shut that (front) door and that was it,” he said. “It was right in front of us.”Storms moved through Etowah and Calhoun counties early Wednesday night, creating a tornado that hit the Silver Lakes and Big Oak communities of Calhoun County. It was the same storm that developed that afternoon in Tuscaloosa and traveled to Birmingham before making its way to north Calhoun County. At least eight people died in Calhoun County. One man was killed after seeking shelter in a basement at the old Mamre Church.Terry Gibbs had gone from the church to his home off Mamre Church Road when the storm hit. His home, along with the old church, was destroyed. Gibbs, whose father owned the old church property, said the building hadn’t been used for services in about two years. One man standing in the midst of the building remnants said he believed the church was built about 1956.Gibbs said about 15 people had sought shelter from Wednesday’s storm in the church. His wife, son and grandchild were OK, as they got out of their home after the storm, Gibbs said they helped pull people out of the church.Ray Lowery and his wife, Doris, were working at Oak Grove Baptist Church where Ray is pastor when they heard the storm coming. They took shelter on the floor in the lower level of the church. When debris started falling in around them, Ray covered Doris. When the winds ceased, he dug a way out for them. “The church went straight up, and picked us up,” he said. Only a few walls and many piles of rubble remain where the church used to stand.Ray and Doris’s home behind the church building was destroyed. “Things can be replaced,” Ray said, “as long as I’ve got my sweetie by my side.”Power lines and trees were down all over the area. Pieces of roofing shingles, wood, metal and glass were strewn about over yards and roads. Inside her husband’s music room, there’s a 55-gallon drum, and Janice Whiteside has no idea where it came from.The roofing was torn off her Glencoe home off U.S. Highway 431 and the roof had completely collapsed over a bedroom in the home. Broken glass, grass and other debris covered the inside of her home and water, which had damaged the ceilings, made its way to the floors. Her family lived in other houses around hers. There was heavy damage sustained, she said, but no one was hurt. “Our family is safe,” she said. “We can rebuild. If we don’t want to rebuild, we can move. “But this is home,” Whiteside said, later explaining she built her house near her parent’s old home and the old home place in 1967. “It’s not just a house.”The Chandlers, who rented their home just yards from the Whitesides, had lived in their home for a month and a half.“This was our dream home,” Belinda Chandler said. Their home sustained several broken windows and roof damage. The portico on one side of the two-story home had partially detached from the house and fallen on one of the couple’s vehicles.No one in their family was badly hurt. Joshua sustained a cut on his arm from broken glass, but a neighbor helped him before he went to Regional Medical Center in Anniston.Joshua recalled being outside playing football with his family in the nice weather last weekend after detailing the damage to and around his home.“It’s amazing how all that can be taken away from you,” Joshua said. “But we aren’t promised a tomorrow.”Those affected in the area are preparing to repair or rebuild their homes and lives from the devastation left behind, salvaging what they can.People came through the area all morning, bringing food and water and helping others sort through what’s left.Volunteers from Johnson’s Hot Rod Shop, where Ray Lowery works, helped remove their salvageable possessions from the house.Friends had come out to Gibbs’ residence to help clear the rubble. His brother had brought Gibbs and his son a change of clothes.“Thank God we’ve got some food, some clothes and some fellowship,” Gibbs said. “And we’ve got Jesus; that’s all you need.”The Websters Chapel area also sustained heavy damage from the storms. Only emergency responders were being allowed to go into the area Thursday afternoon.

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